Nappi

Yup, that was exactly what I thought when I saw them.

Holy shit, that looks, sounds and seems fantastic!

I only use the XBOX D-pad in games where it is used to change a weapon or select an item or perform similar inventory type things, and the D-pad is absolutely horrible for that purpose.

I think he is talking about your The Thing reference.

I'd like to thank you guys for the great and thoughtful cast! I generally try not to dig too deep into these kinds of stories because I know that just about the only possible outcome is me being angry at the entire human race just because a bunch of assholes can't be arsed to do the bare minimum of acting like actual human beings. I don't mind people disagreeing strongly with, say, Anita Sarkeesian's criticism, and can easily live with the fact that some people simply don't find any validity in her arguments at all, but Jesus Christ who the fuck sends rape and death threats over this sort of stuff? Any stuff really? The distance and relative anonymity of internet/social media must be a big factor, because I find it hard to believe that most of these people would actually threaten Anita or others in person (Yes, I am aware of the stalking and breaking into people's houses branch of this sort of fucked-up internet-born harassment, but the thought is simply too disgusting for me to delve any deeper into). But would they tell their real life friends that they just threatened to kill a popular Youtube personality because he/she disagreed with that personality? Or would they be able to meet their fellow internet rape and death threat writers in real life without suddenly feeling really gross about the direction their life has taken? While I find it almost impossible to relate to this type of behavior, I think I might have seen a glimpse a while back of what makes complete assholes of at least some portion of these people. I have watched one or two of Anita Sarkeesian's Feminist Frequency videos before and found them insightful, well-researched and -presented. Still, I don't follow them actively, mostly because they make me feel a bit depressed about the state of (triple-A) video gaming. Earlier this week I was scrolling through my RSS feeds when a news item about the latest Feminist Frequency episode caught my eye. I would probably have ignored it and kept on scrolling (I have subscribed to way too many feeds, and so simply skimming through them feels like a chore sometimes) if the preview image for the video hadn’t featured the box art for The Witcher 2. I thought “Wait a minute? I really liked The Witcher 2!” and for a millisecond I felt some bizarre defenses – spikes even – going up in my mind. This was a bullshit reaction of course, as my enjoyment of the game had nothing to do with the aspects of the game that she was going to criticize and I was already fully aware that the use and portrayal of women in that game is sketchy at best (Although, Triss Merigold was okay at times in The Witcher 2, if I remember correctly. Then the developers made her pose for Polish Playboy which is more than a bit depressing), and so the feeling quickly faded away. How this could lead to someone opening Anita Sarkeesian’s picture in Photoshop with an aim of creating something truly horrible, or registering a new Twitter account and sending death and/or rape threats to Anita or her supporters, or worse, is anyone’s guess. But perhaps if one was 10 years younger, incredibly and aimlessly angry to begin with, a bit more ignorant, and equipped with some sort of strange malfunctioning internal pre-amp that amplified these sorts of feelings by a factor of a million, perhaps then one could confuse criticizing a game that you love with attacking your loved ones and making a counter argument with sending death threats. But so anyway, I watched her latest video “Women as Background Decoration: Part 2” and found it, again, very insightful and well-researched. (As a side-note, the episode reminded me of a piece of criticism – which I had spotted just days earlier on the Wikipedia page for Blue Velvet – that Roger Ebert leveled at David Lynch: “She is degraded, slapped around, humiliated and undressed in front of the camera. And when you ask an actress to endure those experiences, you should keep your side of the bargain by putting her in an important film.” As a further side-note, I was glad to find out she had disallowed comments in her Youtube videos. That I’m actually relieved by this is supremely depressing.) It seems that her videos deal with many of the issues that I have with video games, issues that have, from time to time, made me vary or reluctant to actually purchase/support certain titles and developers (e.g. Farcry 3, but I’m not here to talk about that). It is the kind of criticism that I really appreciate because if it leads to anything – which I hope and think it will do, eventually – it means that I will be able to enjoy video games more in the future, or at the very least feel less guilty about enjoying video games as much as I do now. That is to say, I genuinely think that The Witcher 2, a great game in my opinion, would have been much better, not worse, if the developers had consulted someone like Anita Sarkeesian during the writing process. I admire her devotion, both in terms of the time she is willing to sacrifice for her research (I am already exhausted just editing this stupid post) and in terms of the shit she is willing to endure from random Internet people (more about this in a bit). I find it really hard to believe that this level of devotion could stem from anything other than deep caring for video games as a medium. Furthermore, I don’t think the points she has raised in her videos are all that controversial (Disclaimer: I have only seen a few. Maybe the really vile Feminazi stuff is hidden in her other videos). I view them as valid observations that are not part of some evil feminist cabal (granted, I don’t even know what this is supposed to mean) but that can be roughly equated to someone pointing out in a detailed and thoughtful way that, say, free-to-play might have some issues from the customer point of view, or something. Now, I don’t know if someone is running a video series or a web site devoted to the potential issues free-to-play games and micro transactions, but I’m fairly sure that if that person exists, he (I omitted “/she” because I’m not entirely sure if the assumption would have held anymore. Again, depressing.) is not constantly bombarded with vile tweets and death threats. This brings me back to my first statement of cowardly avoiding these types of news and controversies, because they make me feel bad and I don’t need that shit in my life or whatever. I made a similar comment a while back in the awesome if daunting Feminism thread, in connection with the Polygon article about harassment of women in gaming linked by Argobot. Hermie responded to the comment a bit later: (By the time I noticed Hermie’s comment the thread had already gained 5 pages or so, and I decided not to respond at the time. I will do so now, in a way.) This is a good point and something that always makes me feel bad even if I make a deliberate choice not to read and feel bad about something. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to rake through this kind of shit in your email and Twitter feed, etc. every morning just in case there are still some decent human beings left in the internet. What I know for certain, however, is that I wouldn’t feel passionate enough about video games to keep doing so day after day, month after month. And since I – like many others here, it seems – find it almost impossible to imagine someone enduring this of harassment for (what must be) relatively small amounts of fame and money alone, I suspect that Anita Sarkeesian and others must be passionate about the subject to an extent that I am probably not passionate about anything really. As I already mentioned, I envy this sort of passion and devotion. I am also happy that there are people who are incredibly passionate about things that I am much less but still somewhat passionate about. It makes things easier for me. While I might not be passionate enough about any one subject to choose to endure being harassed day after day for it like some popular Youtube personalities seem to be, there are still things I am passionate enough about to at least make me think twice before committing the equivalent of never talking about video games again and deleting my entire Steam library. Like my work for example (in a broader sense, not the menial things I am doing at the moment). If I suddenly started getting a shitload of unwarranted flak and downright harassment for my work (And this, believe me, is really hard to imagine because the idea is so distant and absurd. That it is not only not distant but practically a norm in certain areas of Internet discourse is, again, monstrously depressing.), I don’t know what I would do. Well, I would probably quit eventually because I couldn’t live with that shit forever, but before that, before I let the stupid ignorant fuckers win, I’d probably just be confused, angry, and lost. I would not revel in the questionable popularity, the unwanted attention, the occasional word of support, and a whole bunch of death threats, that is for sure. I would most likely be in a very dark place hating the entire broken universe with all my heart. Ugh, this was a much shorter and more coherent post in my head. What happened?

Love the idea clyde! Also, my objective review of this week in video games related social media:

Damn. Psychic is one of my favorite albums in the past few years. Plus, I would really have liked to see them live. Nicolas Jaar's Space Is Only Noise is well worth checking out too. http://youtu.be/0EEtPtsXNkE

I'm a bit disappointed that Chris doesn't censor "*********" in the podcast as well. Also, Clue is amazingly entertaining movie. I have watched it three times in less than a year, I think. The swinging smoke orb in the video reminded me of a scene in Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum.

"That was when I saw the Pendulum."

I don't listen to Giant Bombcast but I have enjoyed Dan's Quick Look appearances so far. At least he seems genuinely enthusiastic about checking those games out. Yeah, that was bizarre. I think Dan and Drew make for a good Quick Look pair, though.

Short rant about dialogue gifs in general: they are truly horrible. Sure, they are easy to share on Twitter or whatever, but they also completely obliterate the tone and the context of the quote without adding anything of value as compared to a plain text quote except for a face that you can now love, hate, or feel disgusted about. Which, of course, is the exact reason they are so effective (in some cases at least). Rant over. Sorry for this bit of offtopic.

That does sound quite gross, and makes me want to play The Walking Dead 2 less (even if I have already bought the game). But: I'm equal parts intrigued and confused by this, not least because I find the idea that decisions relating to me might be based on my (former) colleagues' views or actions sort of unnerving. What is the fear here? That by supporting Idle Thumbs, you are also supporting Telltale Games' (alleged) views? Or that the alleged (I keep saying alleged because I find it hard to consider the two guys’ opinions representative of the whole office, even if they keep talking about ”the office”) poisonous work environment (can’t find the correct term at the moment) has somehow contaminated the two former and one current Telltale Games employees* in the Idle Thumbs podcast? If the latter is true, do you think the views Sean, Jake, and Nick have expressed in the podcast echo those of the two Telltale Games guys in the interview? Like at all? Will this also affect the decisions relating to Campo Santo? I’m not trying to be an asshole here, even if I might come across as one (I find it hard know these days). I genuinely want to know what is the reasoning here. As Sarah already pointed out, you are of course free to make your decisions based on whatever. I’m just curious. * Sean and Jake were only involved in the first season of The Walking Dead (which, as a whole, was nothing like the scene you described here, if I remember correctly), while Nick did in fact work for The Walking Dead Season 2.

That trailer was very effective in helping me make up my mind about the game. Whenever Gods Will Be Watching gets mentioned, I go "Oh yeah, this is the game that is not for me at all," in my head.

Awesome on so many levels.

Any plans on airing the episode?

http://www.twitch.tv/idlethumbs/b/393483351 http://www.twitch.tv/idlethumbs/b/393536184 I don't have the timestamp.

Yup, I agree. Assassin's Creed themed Monopoly is just weird, though.

If you, like me, feel that Ubisoft is not releasing enough Assassin's Creed games you can always play Assassin's Creed Monopoly.

Heh, I came across the movie yesterday whilst browsing through new blurays in a store and thought "When was this in theaters?" Apparently it wasn't, at least not in Finland. And the bluray cost less than 10 euros.

I'm glad they decided to change the logo. I really disliked the lightbulb one. Rumor has it that in their upcoming game you explore a nature theme park created by mad biologist millionaire with absolutely no dinosaurs in it.

Hmm.. I may have to revisit that chapter at some point. (Edit: Ahh, that chapter. Yeah, it was great.) Yes, the Lynch essay is there.

Just started reading A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again where David Foster Wallace explains that one of his strengths as a junior tennis player was that he sweated a lot. Also, what was the Ozymandias chapter about?

I really liked The Pale King even though (and partly because) it never really got anywhere in terms of plot. What Ozymandias chapter? I can't remember it anymore.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2303367/?ref_=nv_sr_1 I'd imagine the series got fair amount of criticism. Might still be worth checking out if you are a Douglas Adams fan and don't take adaptations too seriously, I think. Far from perfect, but still quite entertaining.